EVERY LAST TIE: THE STORY OF THE UNABOMBER AND HIS FAMILY

DAV I D

K AC Z Y N S K I

 Afterwor  After wordd by James L. Knoll IV  ,  M  MD D

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THE

S T OR Y O F T H E AND HIS

UNABOMBER

FAMILY

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ST ORY OF

THE U NABOM BER AN D HIS FAMILY

DAV I D

KACZYNSKI

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2016

© 2016 Duke University Press  All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free acid- free paper ♾ Designed by Heather Hensley  ypeset in Arno Pro by seng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-inCataloging-in-Publication Publication Data Kaczynski, David, [date] author. Every last tie : the story of the Unabomber Unabomber and his family / David Kaczynski. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ���� 978978-0-82230-8223-59805980-77 (hardcover : alk. paper) ���� 978978-0-82230-8223-75007500-55 (e- book) 1. Kaczynski, Teodore John, John, [date] [date] 2. Bombers (erroris (errorists)— ts)— Family relationships—Un relationships—United ited States. 3. Capital punishment— punishment— Moral and ethical ethica l aspects—United aspects—Unite d States. I. itle. ��6248.�235�33 2016 364.152′3092—dc23 [�] 2015019794 ��� ����������� �� ��� ������� ��� �������� �� ��� ������. ����� ���: ����� ���� �������� ��� �����, 1952

— For Sylvia Dombek —

������ Hard to believe that the past is completely gone, not a closed room that  we might one day  reenter accidentally,  without anticipation, anticipation, the same way we came in before. Ten how can we fail to experience the room’s emptiness, the lack of walls, the weather? —DAVID KACZYNSKI

CONTENTS

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1. Missing Parts 1 2. Life Force 31 3. Ghost within Me 61 4. North Star 81  Afterword  by James L. Knoll IV, MD MD 105 ��������������� 137 ����� 139

Photo gallery appears after page 60.

PREFACE

 , my wife, Linda Patrik, sat me down �� ��� ���� ������ �� 1995 , for a serious talk. She put her hand on my knee. I could hear stress in her voice. “David, don’t be angry with me,” she began. I expected her to tell me about something that was bothering her, perhaps some habit of mine that she found irritating. Linda could be blunt. I’d learned to appreciate her direct approach. It didn’t leave me guessing what my life partner thought or needed. “Has it ever occurred to you, even as a remote possibility,” she continued, “that your brother might be the Unabomber?”  At first I wasn’t sure I’d I’d heard her right. “What?” “ What?” She repeated her question, and I felt a mixture of consternation and defensiveness. Tis was my only brother she was talking talk ing about! I knew ed ed was mentally ment ally ill, ill, plagued with wit h afflictive emotions. emot ions. I’d worried about him for years. I’d entertained unanswered questions about

his estrangement from the family f amily.. But it never had occurred to me that tha t ed was capable of violence. So far as I knew, he’d never been violent.  At that time, the hunt for for the Unabomber was the longestlongest-running, running, most expensive criminal investigation in the history of the ���. Over seventeen years, the shadowy Unabomber Unabomber had sent through the mail or placed in public areas sixteen explosive devices that had claimed three lives and injured dozens more, some seriously. Within the last  year, the Unabomber had killed two t wo people—Gilbert Murray, Murray, a forforestry industry lobbyist, and Tomas Mosser, an advertising executive. Te Los Angeles airport had recently been shut down after it received a threatening letter from the Unabomber. Meanwhile, the Unabomber had sent a seventy-eightseventy-eight-page page manifesto to the New  New York Times and theWashington Post   and  and demanded that it be published, or

else more bombs would be sent to unsuspecting victims.  At first I assumed Linda had let her imagination run away with her. She pointed out that although the manifesto had not yet been published, it was being described by media sources as a critique of

modern technology. She knew my brother had an obsession with the negative effects of technology. She mentioned that one bomb had  been placed placed at the University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, where where ed was

once a mathematics mat hematics professor. professor. “Tat was thirty years ago!” I countered. “Berkeley is a hotbed for radicals. Besides, ed hates to travel. He has no money.” “But we loaned him money, didn’t we?” I didn’t like the way the conversation was developing. Te human mind can take any fixed idea and patch together evidence to support it. Tat’s Tat’s what I thought was going on. But I wondered why Linda had focused such attention on my brother. “If the Unabomber’s Unabomber’s manifesto is ever published, would you at least

read it and tell me honestly what you think?” she pleaded.  Well,  Well, I could do that much. In fact, reading the manifesto might

 be the best way to allay Linda’s Linda’s fear. At At that stage, I wasn’t capable of imagining imagini ng that the Unabomber and my mixed- up brother bro ther could be xii

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PREFACE

the same person. I’d had extensive correspondence with ed; I knew how he thought and how he wrote. Surely after reading the manifesto I’d be able to say to Linda, “It’s not him!”  A month later, when I read the newly new ly published manifesto, manifest o, Indus Industrial Society and Its Future Future , , I found that I couldn’t in good faith tell

Linda it wasn’t written by my brother. Nor could I tell myself that it was written by him. I’d been an English major, a lover of literature. I assumed that a person’s writing would be as distinctive and identifiidentifiable as their voice. But if it was indeed ed’ ed’ss “voice” that I heard in the

Unabomber’s manifesto, it came to me muffled through thick layers of dread and denial. Over the next two months, we read the manifesto repeatedly and made careful comparisons with letters that ed had sent me over the years from his one- room cabin in rural Montana. Sometimes I

thought I was projecting my worry, seeing what I feared to see, since Linda had planted a strong suggestion in my mind. At other times I thought I might be in denial, unable to see the painful truth because I lacked the wherewithal to deal with it. it .  Yet  Yet the day came when I finally acknowledged to Linda that she

might be right. “Hon, I think there might be a 50–50 chance that t hat ed ed  wrote the manifesto.” manifesto.” Now our question  Is Ted the Unabomber? Unabomber?   led me to a seemingly endless series of other questions and concerns: What will this do to my brother? What will this do to my mother?  (I thought they both might die.) What will this do to us—to Linda and me? What kind of life will we have if it turns out that my brother really is the Unabomber?  And, of course, the most urgent and compelling question: What should we do with our suspicion that we know the t he identity of the most wanted criminal in America, a serial killer?

�� ��� ��������� ��   ed’s arrest, in April 1996, our home in Schenectady, Schenect ady, New York, was w as surrounded by the t he media. Tey hounded PREFACE

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us. Tey somehow gained access to our bank records. Tey dug through our garbage. garb age. Tey called calle d our unlisted numbers. Tey besieged our friends and relatives with interview requests. A picture of our little cabin in southwestern exas showed up in the New York York Times Times. Te

same U.S. government that had promised us complete confidentiality turned into a leaky sieve of information about the Kaczynskis. It felt as if we had not a shred of privacy or dignity left.  At first it looked looked like the media were trying to dig up dirt in answer to their questions. What kind of family would produce the Unabomber? What kind of person would turn in his own brother? Te early stories were floundering, scattered. A late-night comedian dubbed me the “Una-snitch.” “Una-snitch.” But eventually a narrative began to take shape. Te New  New York Times  , in an editorial titled “His Brother’s Keeper,” characterized me as a moral hero, someone willing to ex-

change family loyalty and personal happiness for the lives of people he didn’t know. Te press calmed down and decided to more or less respect our boundaries. Linda and I soon embarked on a new and

equally desperate mission: to try to save my brother from the death penalty.

��� ��� ��� ����  invasions of our privacy, the media never truly “saw” us. Te emerging story was reductionist, flat, even somewhat trite in its characterization of the two brothers, one bad, one good. Linda’s crucial role was first downplayed and then eliminated from the narrative narra tive entirely. If the media really wanted to identify a moral hero in our saga, it could have discovered heroism in a couple rather than in an indi vidual. Or it could have discovered that, far from being the leader of a righteous quest for truth, I was a reluctant follower. Te leader of the righteous quest was Linda, who probably had to assume that role, considering my deep attachment to my brother. But these truths

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PREFACE

are complex, incompatible with the media’s need to tell a simple tale pitched to readers’ expectations. Te purpose of this book is not to set the record straight. Rather, my intention is to tell the one story that I’m uniquely situated to tell  by exploring my memories of the family I was born into—a family I see as both unusual and typical. Te more I delve into these memories, the more clearly I see that I am made of my relationships, and the more deeply I appreciate our profound interconnectedness within

the human family. Te memoir that follows is a contemplation inspired and energized  by a mixture mix ture of loving memories and a nd painful outcomes. May it be of some benefit!

PREFA CE

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